it defined their culture, it shaped their religion, it even shaped their individual personalities. so slavery was central to southern life. but slavery was also an institution, a form of property that contained a problem, a problem for the masters. this valuable form of property was capable of thinking, capable of yearning for freedom and capable of acting upon that yearning. joshua spieled, a kentucky friend owner who was a friend of abraham lincoln's, put it this way: slave property is unlike any other. it is the only property in the world that has locomotion with a mind to control it. and he went on to say that's why they were so sensitive about any outside interference with it. slave property was valuable, but control over it seemed tenuous. and the masters' fear about that fact left them convinced that their laborers could be kept controlled and work profitably only if they were kept uneducated, uninformed, isolated from dangerous influences, closely watched, intimidated and convinced that or tear status as -- that their status as slaves was permanent and up changeable. unchan